If there is one common strand to this weekend's Boulez celebrations it is
the number 12. The South Bank's own commission is of twelve miniatures by
today's leading composers, and Pierre-Laurent Aimard's recital was
focussed on the number 12. The first half of his recital, coupling Boulez's
Notations, First Piano Sonata and Schoenberg's Five
Pieces, involved twelve notes, in twelve parts, in twelve pieces, and
the second half coupled Debussy's two books of Études, twelve
in all. It was all nicely symmetrical.

Aimard used two different pianos for his recital. That for the Boulez and
Schoenberg had greater projection (so important in the Boulez), whereas the
piano for the Debussy offered a greater luminosity of tone, in keeping with
the impressionism of Debussy's writing. In lesser hands, one might have missed
this, but Aimard is a colourist almost without peer amongst today's pianists.
The technique is fabulously assured - so much so that he is able to concentrate
on the textures of a piece. (Maurizio Pollini's performances of the
Twelve études reveal astonishing technique but at the
expense of the music's clear inner beauty; Aimard, by contrast, invests these
pieces with a painter's touch.)

Boulez's piano writing is often terrifically exciting. The contrasts between
the First Sonata's active and dreamy elements were phrased impeccably,
the "volcanic mass of collapsed elements" (Aimard), in the second movement,
often titanic. In Notations, the debt to Messiaen's pianistic imagination
(particularly in the Vingt Regards, just released on a sensational
recording by Aimard) was made transparent, but the harmony remained intensely
Boulezian. By placing Schoenberg's revolutionary Five Pieces alongside,
Aimard made the debt owed even clearer, although I find Boulez's writing
often more attractive than Schoenberg's arid tone world. Aimard played with
bewitching virtuosity.

The Debussy was transcendent, Aimard's imagination and blend of colour
scintillating throughout. The Fifth and Twelth études
were particularly outstanding, the dash across the keyboard demonic, the
tonal allure beguiling. This was pianism of rare refinement, inspirational
from beginning to end.

Marc Bridle

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